


Kalabera

by Hosue



Category: Original Work
Genre: Ancient History, F/F, F/M, M/M, Mythology - Freeform, Strong Female Characters, Strong Woman/Weak Man, a little bit of queer history, first fic, first time uploading here, that's just about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 07:56:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20336731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hosue/pseuds/Hosue
Summary: "The last sound I would hear is the screeching of vultures, circling us from high above, awaiting for the carcass of that unfortunate enough to have lost the battle of living.I descended into the dark, cold-bodied and confused.Nothingness enveloped me for a long time—a time when I could not comprehend anything.Anything except this all-encompassing darkness.Ugly and unfamiliar; a darkness that felt exactly like when I looked into his eyes."





	1. Chapter 1

**PROLOGUE**

_The boar hid behind the trees, waiting._

_Big and black and ravenous, its red beady eyes stared intently at me._

_It was thirsty._

_“Iska, what’s wro—?”_

_Then boar lunged from the foliage and I ran._

_I don’t know why, I don’t know how. It felt like my bones were frozen; my body had grown cold._

_Yet I kept running—away from that horrible beast, from that terrible creature._

_Overhead, the sky turned to a crimson color and the forest bled into a field of wheat and rice._

_The stench of rotting flesh filled my nose._

_I wanted to stop and turn around—to go back, but my legs wouldn’t stop, though they ached from the strain; I felt like I couldn’t breathe._

_A scream resounded throughout the entire field and suddenly, I stopped running. My breath came in puffs of smoke and for a moment, the field was silent; nothing moved._

_Then my body turned around and, there, facing me was the distorted face of the boar, a dark liquid dripping off the side of his face and a hungrier, angrier, look etched upon it._

_My hand crept towards the sharpened wood tucked along the seams of my waist-cloth, carefully, until I felt the hilt of the small spear flat within my palm. I gripped it tightly._

_My eyes never left the boar’s nor did his, mine._

_Silence._

_Then suddenly there was another scream—raw and painful and weak—but it was enough to spur the boar into action and, swift as it was earlier, it lunged towards me in fervor._

_I leapt to my feet as well, the dagger-like spear in my hand._

_But I was a second too late._

_The last sound I would hear is the screeching of vultures, circling us from high above, awaiting for the carcass of that unfortunate enough to have lost the battle of living._

_I descended into the dark, cold-bodied and confused._

_Nothingness enveloped me for a long time—a time when I could not comprehend anything._

_Anything except this all-encompassing darkness._

_Ugly and unfamiliar; a darkness that felt exactly like when I looked into _his_ eyes._


	2. Chapter 1

I couldn’t remember anything from when my parents died, but I supposed it must have been a gruesome death. When I woke up, I was in a small kubo and a fire was lit in the hearth not far from me. Above the fire was a pot of boiling fish broth.

My right arm was broken, I saw, and I was naked. Outside, the beginnings of rain formed; dark clouds accumulating from the tops of the mountains overhead and, slowly, moving towards the area. Lying on the bamboo floor, the fire was all that could provide heat for me. Unable to move, unable to speak, I then decided to go back to sleep…

When I came to, it was to the touch of wet cloth upon my body and the sound of rain hitting the nipa ceiling. The tangy scent of the broth filled the hut and I saw the brown skin of the weathered hand holding the cloth moving along the expanse of my stomach. The hand belonged to an old man.

“You are awake,” he said. His voice was thick and heavy; the accent of a southern islander.

Black eyes moved to face me. He stared at me for a moment, then turned around, towards the boiling pot.

There was a sound of metal hitting wood and I turned my head to see what he was doing, but even the minimal strain hurt. The old man was bent over the pot, stirring it with a wooden stick. Replacing the lid, he returned with a wooden bowl filled with broth, set it aside, and moved my head.

“Drink,” he said as he pressed the bowl’s lips to mine. Acknowledging, I opened my mouth to swallow the warm liquid.

He set me down after and moved to dispose the bowl. When he came back, he was carrying two leaves of anahaw, which he draped over me. Then he lit a tobacco.

Smoke filled the hut and the rain began to pour, but the hut remained silent.

That continued for the entire night. The old man didn’t fall asleep; I however slept in short intervals. The smoking did not stop either. It billowed from his lips until daybreak, heavy but not suffocating. Until then, the fire from the clay hearth provided warmth.

By dawn, the heavy rain settled to a rhythmic drizzle and the smoke stopped with a final puff. By then, my eyes could no longer hold themselves open and, slowly, I drifted off to a deep slumber.

=

For a time, I lived by the sea. I often did this as my parents were travelling merchants, always hopping from place to place, selling trinkets and gifts and, secretly, information in exchange for food and lodging.

There is absolutely no reason why my parents travel by trade. From what I know, my parents come from two families of wealthy and provident farmers, datus from barangays up north, where, in the vast cold mountains, where barely any sunlight sustained, farming was a treasure guarded jealously. I suppose my parents didn’t want that life, the seclusion in the deep tresses of the mountains. As soon as I was old enough to run, we had left the ancestral house, the barangay, and began travelling by foot.

It took years for my parents to settle in the business. In the beginning, we had only meandered about, with nothing but clothes and scarce food on our backs. What little items my mother had brought with her from the house was sold in an antique pawnshop at some southern barangay in exchange for three gold coins; one of which we bought food and other necessities for ourselves, and the second for goods to sell.

The last one, my father kept. We survived a whole season of wet and sudden dryness through these supplies alone and, come summer, it was the first time I’d ever seen the ocean.

Wide and blue and ominous, the water seemed to stretch for miles unending, bleeding into the purple of the sky as sunrise approached. I remembered the feeling of lightness in my chest as I watched the sun rising from between the valleys from afar, how the clouds separated as though in reverence to its benevolence. In the darkness and mists of the mountains above, where the smallest rays of the sun was a blessing from Bathala, this was more than a sight to behold. The sunrise seemed like a miracle was happening, like it was a beginning.

We found lodging from a kubo at the edge of the barangay. It belonged to an old rice farmer, whose wife had just died and whose only son had left for towns east of here. He was the only one left taking care of the rice paddies in the parcel of land he owned by the foot of the mountains. However, because of the relentless summer heat, the lack of rain was causing the crops to perish and a famine was sweeping over the area.

My father struck a deal with him. If he helped with the old man’s farming, we could to stay at his house for a while. Meanwhile, my father would teach the old man about various irrigation techniques and how to secure water properly in the dry season. The old man agreed.

We stayed in the barangay for months before the signs of autumn signaled our leave. In those days, my mother often left the kubo to work at various jobs throughout the village, learning business, looking for better trade. With my father on the field, I constantly headed towards the ocean to entertain myself, picking seashells, collecting pebbles, wading but never swimming in the deep blue.

It was about three weeks in the barangay that I met the boy while I was walking down the beach. The evening air had just about settled, the sun a molten circle over the horizon, casting an orange glow onto the sky and waters.

Perhaps he had only meant well, this boy, and had only wanted a friend, but the moment his eyes locked into mine, those pools of never-ending darkness, unfeeling, unemotional, _dead_, I knew that something was horribly wrong. That something terrible would happen.

The next day, five people died and the following weeks grew hotter than ever.

=

The flies danced around the skin of my stomach, exposed for the Babaylan to see. I turn my head, slowly, carefully, and found the old woman, hunched over the clay hearth, which had been moved to sit in the middle of the room, and over the clay pot which had been boiling since the moment I woke up. The hut was closed off, the doors and windows shut, and the steam from the pot filtered through the room, carrying the aroma of leaves with it. The Babaylan’s mouth never stopped moving, muttering inaudible words with eyes never leaving the pot. The only light was the light from the fire. The old man was gone.

It had been like this since I woke up, bleary and hurting.

Suddenly, the Babaylan leaned back. She took a wooden stick and a wooden bowl and, stirring the pot, she took out a long string of leaves and put it on the wooden bowl. Then she stood up and knelt before my body. She took my injured arm briskly and placed it on her lap. I winced as pain shot through my body.

She took the string of leaves from the bowl and wrapped it along my arm, her movements careful and sure. She worked with a stead-fastness only found in a seasoned medical worker, only found in her kind, and then she tied off the string with a single strand of nipa.

She took the bowl once more, and, running a hand across my stomach, she then poured the scalding water across it. I bit my lip as an even greater pain wracked through my body. Unbidden tears ran down my face but I refused to scream.

Then it was over, the last drops of the herbal water bouncing off my skin. The Babaylan stood up to open the window above me, then the door of the nipa hut, and the last two windows surrounding. The steam in the air quickly dissipated and sunlight shone through. She left the fire running.

“The smell of death follows you,” she said after a while, settling down before me. Her eyes were cast down. “You should not have killed the boar.”

“It would have killed me.” My voice was raw and hoarse.

“Your death would have been celebrated. That boar was the Anito of this forest. You have killed him and now the barangay may suffer for it.”

She regarded me closely. Silence fell upon the hut.

I turned away from her scrutiny. “Why did you save me, then?” I asked. I had heard of the stories and the curse of those who killed the Anitos and Anitas. Death lingered before them, awaiting their demise, and they will suffer the most painful of them all. “It would have been best to leave me for dead.”

“It will have been the wisest choice, yes,” the Babaylan agreed. “That is what I told Datu Iberein, but Datu Iberein wanted you alive. Datu Iberein is very wise; I assume he must want something from you.”

I looked back at her. “And my arm?” I asked.

Her lips pursed. “Your arm will heal, but it will be very useless. The blood of the boar remains upon it and it will continue so until you die. That arm will only bring you luck of the worst kind and you will be plagued by disease and ruin. Soon, that same arm will bring death upon yourself. Such is the curse of the deities.”

A metal clang resounded throughout the area nearby. Five hits and then it was gone. The Babaylan prepared to stand up.

“They are preparing for the boar’s burial,” she said when I looked at her, imploring. “I must go.”

“Wait,” I said. She stopped mid-way towards the door. “In the forest, did you find others? Two others. They are my parents.”

She held my gaze, cold and menacing. “Yes, we did. I buried their ashes hours ago.”

Before I could say anything more, she said, “You shouldn’t expect everyone to offer you the same respect I did for your parents. Datu Iberein might be kind enough to let you live but it does not say the same for everyone. With what you did, you might as well be better off dead.”

Then, the Babaylan left.


End file.
